Theme Music: “Noise in my Head” by Clarknova from the album “Annexia”Outro Music: “You Learn About It” by The Gathering from the album “Souvenirs”

I have known Trish for a few years now, we met at a game night through Toronto Boardgame and Social, a meetup.com group. When I met her, she was a bigger girl (weighing over 200 pounds at 5’2”), but her personality instantly won me over, and she is as they say “not just a pretty face”, she’s a smart cookie too.

Trish and I have realized through getting to know each other that we have a few things in common. We talk about some of them here (including us both suffering from chronic migraines), and Trish explains a bit about her job (she is a prosecutor).

The main focus of this episode however, is Trish’s personal experience in deciding to get surgery to get her weight under control and investigating her options. OHIP (Ontario’s Health Insurance Plan) tried to steer her (and everyone else) into getting a Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass procedure, but she found through her personal research (including medical journals) that it has a high failure rate and some really negative side effects which people are not properly informed about prior to surgery (assuming they don’t do their own research). She decided that her best bet was the Duodenal Switch procedure, but you can’t just request it because it is a rare and difficult surgery to perform. So she had to advocate for herself. And she did, successfully.

Trish shares with me her story, her experience, her research and her advice for others.